A disturbance broke out on Wednesday, 14 October, outside the Constitutional Tribunal shortly after judge Maciej Berek was sworn in. The ceremony took place in the office of Sejm speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty. President Karol Nawrocki did not attend.
Because the head of state was absent, opposition politicians can keep arguing that the oath is invalid. Law and Justice and tribunal president Bogdan Święczkowski say the president must be physically present. Other legal experts read the rules differently and say the law does not require Nawrocki to take part for the ceremony to be valid.
People gathered by the tribunal included members of the Border Defence Movement and its leader, Robert Bąkiewicz, staff from Telewizja Republika, the station linked to Tomasz Sakiewicz, members of the Gazeta Polska weekly club, and Law and Justice politicians. Scuffles with officers followed.
Commissioner Jacek Wiśniewski, spokesman for the Warsaw Police Headquarters, told Onet that three people were detained over insulting uniformed officers and violating their bodily integrity.
Rafał Jankowski, chair of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union of Police Officers, said the officers acted lawfully while carrying out their duties. He said part of public anger during political protests often falls on the police, and he blamed politicians for failing to reach agreement and leaving officers to step in.
Jankowski said their task that day was to keep two hostile sides apart so that neither officials nor protesters suffered a breach of bodily integrity. He said the officers stayed calm, avoided letting the clash grow, and showed restraint even while they were cursed, spat on and abused, and even though some people in the crowd broke the law and physically violated the officers. He singled out Bąkiewicz as someone who stirs a crowd, and said politicians should not allow conflicts of this kind to flare.